~ On assignment with IBM Corporate Services Corps in India

Category Archives: Preparation

Even in a company like IBM, with 400,000+ employees it turns out that it’s a very small world. Today I heard from Kristen, a colleague I work with that she has been accepted to the CSC program too and is awaiting assignment sometime in the next year. I’m very excited since hopefully I can come back from my experience and give her some type of valuable insights.

Also, I know that Elyse who is also on the India20 team is part of the IBM Expertise project that is a sister project to the CCH project I’m leading. So it’s interesting to see how CSC can bring together people in new ways and in so doing we can discover linkages and relationships we might otherwise not have made even when working on similar goals.

In terms of my final preparation work it’s in full gear since I’m only a few days away from departure. My main goal at work has been to finish up all of the work in progress I can, as well as determine how best to allocate the day to day duties I have to my team so everything can proceed forward in my absence. I’m eternally grateful to Raj and Allison for agreeing to cover for me while I’m gone. I really owe you both.

CCT Project wise I’ve started to craft a project plan skeleton for our work in India. AS I do it becomes apparently how much need to be accomplished in such a short period of time. We will be VERY busy. Soon, I’ll share this draft with my team-mates (Peter and Emily) since I’m sure this is a team approach we need to agree on shortly after we get together in India.

Anyway – I will keep posting as I can. Hopefully this blog will become more interesting once arrive in Mumbai and Jamnager. Just the adventure of the marathon flight to get there might be a story in it’s own right.

In my continued quest to fully prepare myself for India I accomplished a few things today:

1. Ordered a starter quantity of Rupees from the bank to cover me for at least the first few days in India should I not be able to get to a bank right away. The bank person I worked with was very enthusiastic because he loves how the currency looks. I do too. But hey, I’m used to cool looking multicolored Canadian money.

2. Confirmed that my Credit and Bank (Interact / Cirrus / Maestro) card should work just fine in India. Which is GREAT news. Sadly the withdrawal costs are significant but I think it will still it will be the primary way I get cash regularly cause I’m not keen on carrying around big wads of money with me ( call me crazy ). That said from all I’ve learned I know it’s a cash, not plastic economy.

3. I confirmed with my credit card company and bank the dates that I’ll be away – so they don’t “shut me down” when they see my wild spending transactions in India. Usually I forget this step when I travel.

4. Booked my last flight – the one I need to get form Mumbai to New Delhi at the end of the assignment so I can meet up with my wife for the vacation following the amazing CSC adventure. I’m really looking forward to this part of the adventure as well. We will be touring both North and South India. The only thing better than an adventure on your own is a shared adventure with the person you love.

5. Had a instant message session with Nina, a fellow India20 team member. She was asking me taking mosquito netting (or not). I’m not taking any since I have Malaria medication and mosquito repellent. Also I think the hotel we will be in is pretty nice so maybe it won’t be a big deal. Also my luggage weight restriction is just too low (15Kg limit). Anyway, seems like Nina will be doing the same as me. Hope it turns out I did not steer her wrong with my advice.

This morning Emily and I, with the help of our friends from the CDS team, were able to establish a first call with the client. It was great meeting with them to establish a “first contact” to introduce ourselves.

Sadly the downside was that the process of making the connections was challenging (involving some ad-hoc conferencing in actions), and the sound quality poor. So poor in fact that for the next two weeks we are going to resort to Email communication to continue to learn more about the assignment.

Of course we are all looking forward to the in-depth work that will occur when we start the real work just over 2 weeks from now when we arrive. Anyway – the excitement continues to build. Just a couple more things to pack and some final logistics to sort.

Only a few weeks before we hop on the plane and things are heating up! I have two more preparation meetings left and only three weeks before I depart. The past week has been good in that I got to exchange recorded welcome video’s with my team (Peter and Emily) and the Director of the CCT organization – Hitesh Pandya. Having this video exchange was excellent.

Now Emily and I are trying to arrange a first phone call with Hitesh to occur early next week, but email and timezone have been a bit problematic so actually we don’t yet have this finalized. It would be great to have a first conversion with him, but of course the real work starts when we get onsite.

Otherwise had a great call with the in CSC in country contacts we will be working with Kabi and Shruti. They were very good at answering the questions Emily and I had about he project and also the logistics. It turns out we will be staying in a very nice hotel in Jamnager, with most modern conveniences so I’m happy about that. Also confirmed that Shruti will be meeting us in Mumbai when we each arrive and getting us to the hotel. And then the next day flying with us to Jamnager where we will meet Kabi. So seems like we are in very good hands. My initial fears about the potential to be wandering around India lost are clearly unfounded.

We ave been warned about internet reliability so we wil have to hope thats good too. If the blog postings stop after Aug 6th you will know what happened.

Today on the preparation call we learned more about the way in which IBM measures the value the CSC program is offering to the clients. We got some important instructions on how to take a baseline survey/measurements of the impact of the project as we complete it. Importantly IBM seems to do a good job following up in a measurable way 18 months and 24 months after the project. It’s great to hear so that we can all understand the lasting impact (hopefully) our efforts might have had.

Anyway – that’s all the update for now. This weekend I need to do more packing and some last smaller stuff organized/purchased – medical kit, mosquito repellent, sunscreen, etc. Not sure how the heck I’m going to get my luggage won to the 15KG checked luggage and 8KG carry on limit. But that’s a puzzle for tomorrow.

Hope someone out there is reading this and getting some value from it. Have a great weekend.

It’s been a interesting past couple of days of continued prepataion and learning so wanted to leave a quick post to let you know about a few of the highlights. As you saw in my last post I’ll be working for CCT in the city of Jamnager. The other IBM’ers and I have been split into three project. Emily, Peter and I will be on the CCT project and our principal goal will be to formulate and deliver a strategic plan for the growth of the organizational Happy Children Centers from 3 locations/slums to 60! Seems like an big and exciting challenge and I’m sure there are many aspects of this we will be delving into, not the least of which is the funding model to drive such growth.

Three of the other IBM’ers will be working on a agricultural related project, working to help develop planning for and members hip regional farmers organization that will help promote the business elements of agriculture in the region for the farmers.

Finally, there will be a team of 4 working in the more traditional school system assessing how to improve the quality of English language instruction.

All three projects are awesome, but I’m particularly please with mine 🙂

The directors for the client we are working for, Hitesh and Kajal, have already reached out and sent some introduction video and Peter and I have recorded and sent back a quick introduction video for each of ourselves. Next week Emily and I will meet with Hitesh on the phone (or Skype) and go over the statement of work to learn even more about the project so we can formulate ideas on how to proceed, even in advance of getting on the airplanes.

Including a couple video links here that will be on interest. One shows the school yard at the main facility we will be working form, and the other is the office area where ewe will be working. Thankfully looks like it has Air Condition and and FAN!!!!

WOW! I just heard the amazing news that I will be working with Peter (from Germany) and Emily (from USA) to assist this amazing organization. If you want to learn more about it click here.

At this point it looks like we will be working to help craft a strategic plan for the expansion of the organization so that we can expand the number of people the organization can help.

It will be awesome to help out since this organization seems to do so much to offer people living in the slums access to education that I’m sure is of huge benefit to them.

A quick synopsis of the mission of the organization is:

“Mission, brief description, and history.

Chaitanya Charitable Trust (CCT) is a voluntary non-governmental, apolitical, and non-commercial organization. Its main focus is the slum population in Jamnagar, particularly children’s’ education. However, Chaitanya also works in environment, health, water & sanitation, livelihoods, women empowerment, and slum development.

Chaitanya was started after a time of personal tragedy for the founders, Hitesh and Kajal Pandya. They closed their business and established Chaitanya, originally with education, health, and livelihood goals as the main focus of the organization. They established an early childhood center, created a free health clinic, and organized livelihood skills classes for women’s livelihoods in one area of a slum. The program was a success and now, Chaitanya works in other slums in Jamnagar.

Chaitanya has an office, and on the same premises, an educational hall, library, clinic, computer lab, and training hall that are all part of the resources for the children participating in chaitanya’s programs. The organization’s funds come from local donors, builders, and other people who support their work. They are also registered under the Foreign Currency Registration Act (FCRA), which allows them to receive foreign currency donations. Chaitanya has a staff of 15 people and is currently working in three Jamnagar slums.”

On Friday I’ll get more information about the organization and project, but it seems to be exactly what I was hoping for.

Super exciting. Wish me luck as I start even more preparations before my departure on Aug 7th.

1. On Friday I agreed to be the “Security SPOC” for the India 20 team. I was all excited to be more like “SPOCK” until I realized it’s got nothing to do with Star trek and it stands for “Single Point of Contact”. Anyway, what this means is that amongst my other CSC duties I’ll have a role in helping to communicate security information between the team members and IBM Security. I’ll learn more about the specifics soon. But meanwhile I’ll just be happy knowing I’m one step close to being aboard the USS Enterprise 🙂

2. Had a fun (but expensive) weekend shopping. I came to the conclusion that if I am to survive the heat of India I actually need to buy some good travel closes. leah helped out (thanks) so that I only made good style choices.

I got a number of great things that should make the trip even more enjoyable. These included a couple very nice long-sleeve cool shirts, a Gortex rain-proof jacket (it is Monsoon season), a great hat, and… underwear. Yes… I said new underwear! In my discussion with seasoned travelers the underwear is perhaps the most recommended item. Apparently they are super handy in that you can wash out and they dry in under one night. This might come in very handy spending on how how hot I might get, and how the washing situation goes set up.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Preparations continue… Hopefully by end of week I’ll be able to post more specifics as the actual assignment and organization I’ll be working for.

Yesterday I spend a bit of time connecting this blog up with my Facebook site, as well as getting it to publish to my twitter feed. So if you want to follow this information in other ways you should be able to get it that way too.

BTW my twitter account/name is kmackenzie63 if you want to follow that way.

For any IBM’ers wanting to follow me and others that are on CSC assignments a great place to go is the social aggregation page.

As to preparation all is going fine. I’m almost complete on my online preparation work, and tomorrow at the weekly meeting I think we will have an Indian doctor as a guest speaker to give us some information about health in India. It should be very interesting. Also – packing has begun and I got a good packing list from another CSC person so hopefully I wont forget anything. I think my biggest concern is the luggage weight restrictions I might have since it seems domestic flight on air India are 15KG. So I’ll need to pack much lighter than I intended for a trip of two months away.

Please feel free to comment or ask questions at any point, since I’m interesting in sharing about anything that my massive reader population 😉 might be interested in.

I had a great Canada Day long weekend and it was nice to have an extra day away form the desk to enjoy the sun. It also allowed me time to try to sort out what kind of Canadian gifts/souvenirs to take with me to India since it’s likely I’ll need to have a token to provide to the people I work for while in India. In the end I found some fun Canadian key chains left over from the Vancouver Olympics as well as some Maple leaf drink Coasters.

I think I’ll also take some small containers of Maple Syrup (Canada branded) but I’m slightly concerned in regards to weight restrictions I think I’ll have on my luggage when I’m on the domestic flight I need to take in India.Anyway – if anyone else has a good idea about small and in-expensive gifts to take please comment.

Good news, Leah and I just got our Visa. So the paperwork is now complete for the adventure!

Also, IBM has been able to secure an extra night stay in the Mumbai hotel at the start of the assignment so that I don’t have to worry too much about arriving at 3 am on Aug 9th and having no where to go for 12 hours.

Another good bit of news, a colleague I work with has been super nice to me and has purchased me something called a life straw. This is an amazing device that filters water. I’m pretty jazzed about it since with the heat of India I’m sure to need lots of re hydration. It seems in many places the water can be suspect so this is going to be of great help to me. So much so it has become the first thing I officially place in my suitcase as I begin my packing process.

Anyway, if your interested to learn more take a look at this ” Lifestraw ”